Stories of New Jersey by Frank R. Stockton (first ebook reader txt) 📖

as we were bereft of every hope from the commissaries. At one time the soldiers ate every kind of horse food but hay. Buckwheat, common wheat, rye, and Indian corn composed the meal which made their bread. As an army, they bore it with the most heroic patience; but sufferings like these, accompanied by the want of clothes, blankets, etc., will produce frequent desertions in all armies; and so it happened with us, though it did not excite a single mutiny."

At this time, various circulars and printed bills were sent to the American army from the British, urging the men to fly from all their hardships and miseries, and join the English force, where they would be received, and furnished with every comfort. In this condition of things it was very important to keep the American soldiers, cold, hungry, and idle, from thinking too much of their troubles. Washington could not give them balls, nor invite them to dine; but he wisely considered that the best thing he could give them was occupation,—a most wonderful medicine for discontent. He therefore determined to build a fort upon the summit of the hill where the camp was situated.

His engineers therefore planned a large fortification made up of earthworks; and on this the men were put to work, as if it had been expected that the enemy would soon arrive, and take the place. The desire to put their camp in a condition of defense, and the animation of steady labor, were of as much advantage to the spirits of the soldiers as bread and meat would be to their bodies; and, from sitting in idle groups about their camp fires and huts, they worked on the new intrenchments, ramparts, and redoubts with cheerful energy.

Everything was done exactly as if the new fort were soon to be called upon to protect the town, which stretched itself beneath the hill; and the engineers and officers were as careful in making plans and giving directions as if they had been building a fort at the entrance of New York Bay.

It was never expected that the fort would be attacked, and it was never supposed, that, if the British should come this way, the battle would be fought in or about the town; but the building of the fort was honestly intended for the defense and protection of the troops, not against muskets, cannon, and bayonets, but against discontent and despair,—enemies far more formidable to the suffering army of that day than British troops and Hessians.

The result was a good one: Washington's army at Morristown stood by him as long as he staid there; and when they marched away, they left upon the top of that hill a monument to the wisdom, the kindness, and the knowledge of human nature, displayed by their great commander in chief in those hazardous days.

We do not know what this earthwork was first called; but in time it came to be known as Fort Nonsense, simply because it appeared to the ordinary man as a great piece of work undertaken without any good purpose. But never was a name more inapplicable. If it had been called Fort Good Sense, it would have been much more suitable.

The remains of this fort are still to be seen on the hill beyond Morristown; and a monumental stone has been set up there to mark its site, and explain its nature and purpose. Most of its ramparts and redoubts have been washed away by the storms of more than a century, and we can still perceive many of its outlines; but those skilled in the art of military fortification know that it was a good fortress, while students of human nature and of the influence of great minds upon the welfare of their fellow-beings, know that it acted an important part in the defense of our liberties and the establishment of our government.

It may be remarked that in this story we have said a good deal about other things, and very little about Fort Nonsense. But there is very little of Fort Nonsense, and not much to say about it; and what has been told was the story of the camp life of Washington and his army in New Jersey, the most permanent and suggestive point of which is the earthwork called Fort Nonsense.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AN AMERICAN LORD.

Among the principal men of colonial days and of Revolutionary times, there were many whose social positions were much the same as the station of the ordinary European aristocrat. From their ancestors the colonists had inherited the disposition to recognize differences in rank; and men of wealth and high position in the colonial government were regarded to a certain extent as members of the nobility are regarded in England. Before the Declaration of Independence, it was not even assumed in this country that all men are born equal.

But, although there were native-born personages in the Colonies who might well be termed aristocrats, their titles were political or military; and an American lord was, as he would be now, something entirely out of the common.

But in those days there was an American lord; and a very good American he was, in spite of his being a lord. This was William Alexander, known as Lord Stirling. He was born in New York, of Scotch parents. When he was quite a young man, he went into military life, and served in the British colonial army in the French War. In the campaigns in which he served, he gained the military education which was afterwards of the greatest advantage, not only to him, but to the country.

There was no British heir to the earldom of Stirling, a Scotch peerage; and, as he believed that he was a direct descendant of the last Lord Stirling, the young man went to England, and laid claim to the estate and title. He was successful in proving his direct descent from the earls of Stirling; but the House of Lords, who gave the final decision in the case, would not allow his claim. Even if the law had permitted his claim, it is not likely that the British House of Lords would have been anxious to welcome into the peerage an American-born person.

But although he got nothing more, he really obtained his title, and he was known then, as he is known in history, as Lord Stirling. He was a man of wealth, and must have had a very good time in England, for he studied well the manners and customs of the nobility; and as his own habits and tastes were those which he observed in the great houses of England, he here received a social education which had a great effect upon his future career.

He was also the means of educating some of the inhabitants of Great Britain, and the way in which he did it is shown by a little incident which occurred when he was visiting Scotland. He was invited to dine at the house of a gentleman, who informed his wife that an American was coming to take dinner with them. It is to be presumed that this announcement had about the same effect upon her as would now be produced if an American gentleman should inform his family that a chief from Madagascar was to dine with them.

The Scotch lady, no doubt, expected to see a copper-colored brave, in war paint and feathers, with tomahawk, and bows and arrows, and perhaps a few scalps hanging from his belt. Probably she had busied herself devising a dinner which would suit a savage who was a native of that far-away land of America, and hoped she might give him something which would compensated him for the loss of a cannibal repast; but when she beheld the handsome young gentleman who came into the house with her husband, she could not repress her astonishment, and exclaimed, "Bless my soul! The animal is white." Ignorance of foreign countries was at that time not uncommon in Great Britain.